Monitor a tactile aid to increase the environmental perception of persons with deafness or deafblindness

Purpose and goal:

An aid for the deaf and deafblind, Monitor, has previously been developed. The purpose is tactile communication. Ambient sounds from vehicles, machines, alarms, etc., are transformed into vibration signals, which, with a vibrator attached to the user´s arm, facilitate the perception of the environment. The existing prototype suffers from ergonomic problems. The purpose of the project was to investigate the possibilities of using printed electronics on textiles.

Unfortunately, the project did not arrive at a practically usable solution with printed electronics. Expected results and effects:

Expected results were to produce a prototype largely built with printed electronics on textile. In this way, it was hoped to improve the transmission of the vibrator signals to the user´s skin, while at the same time an increased mechanical flexibility would be achieved. The possibility to later reduce the manufacturing cost was also a desirable effect.

The problems turned out to be harder than expected and rooted in material selection, mechanical stability, resistant solders and moisture, in combination with weak vibrator signals. Approach and implementation:

The setup was divided into 4 steps: 1. Technology overview 2. Conversion of existing prototype (hardware and software) 3. Design of new vibrator module with printed electronics 4. Test with subjects.

Steps 1, 2 and 4 proceeded according to plan, with the exception the actual tests in step 4 could not be carried out. However, the problems and the time required in step 3 had been underestimated. Further, the vibrator technology had to be changed at a late stage from piezoelectric to electromagnetic.

Printed electronics can probably be used in the long run, but more development work remains.